Wednesday, September 30, 2009

I guess it's common knowledge that Thor is much more than a very powerful synth :)

Besides being a very powerful versatile multi-filter+effects device, it's also a very capable CV machine, capable of very cool and useful CV processing and generation.

I have many basic patches at hand that I use as basic building blocks to build more complex combinators. Some I've already mentioned here, but many others I keep to myself because there are already equivalent devices made by others before me, or some are so basic (although useful) that I think it would be kind of weird to mention them here.

Recent events lead me to change this idea a bit. I'm beginning to realize that what some may consider as basic knowledge, it may be news to others, so why not make some quick posts about it ?

So, this post will quickly show a very useful use of Thor's modulation matrix and input'n'outputs at the back.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

After playing a lot with V.0.6.2 to see if there were no concept bugs, and that there wasn't anything else worth of adding without needlessly bloating it, I took some time to take it to V.0.7, the one that implements external CV control of other KFX Machines, acting as "slaves", to substitute the included internal slim effects.

ReGRAINZeR V.0.8 was born as soon as I decided it was time to build everything from scratch. This was also the time to tighten the implementation, leaving all the extra devices used in the beta phase to ease any new feature I decided to add.

So now, V.0.8 has 7 less reMix devices and 1 less Spider CV device :)I could get rid of 6 more Spider CV's, if only the Splitter section had 1 extra inverted CV out in each pair :( ...oh well.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

I found a workaround to my M-Audio Axiom 61's problem! :DThis problem came to light only while beta testing Record 1.0. I realized that my Axiom was randomly firing an Expression MIDI message (CC 11), during a Channel Aftertouch MIDI stream. This was causing some weird behaviors on some of Record's ID8 presets.So, if I played ID8's Electric Piano Mark II (an Expression-aware preset), after pressing the keys a few times (sending the Channel Aftertouch data), the preset volume spiked up unexpectedly! And this happened every time with some other Expression-aware presets.After checking with other fellow beta testers that this wasn't an ID8 preset bug, I had to (unexpectedly) turn my attention to my controller, the Axiom.Using MIDI-OX's MIDI dump, there it was, that darned unwanted, uninvited Expression hiccup :(Well, now I finally had some time to try something: Set Axiom's Zone 1 (only, so I could still use the other Zones if needed) Expression CC to OFF... and... IT WORKS! :DSo now, while using Zone 1, I see no CC11 unwanted triggering while generating Aftertouch :)This also shows that's really an hardware issue and not a firmware bug (as I thought at first).I checked the Expression's connection at the back, and from the outside it looks ok, so there must be some kind of weird short-circuit inside, somewhere on circuit path, triggered by the Aftertouch pressure sensor or something... :/oh well... at least now its kinda fixed, since I don't use an Expression pedal anyway :)

Monday, September 7, 2009

My (quite small) spare time, these past weeks, have been "wasted" playing with Record 1.0 =)

Every little chance I got, I spent it playing with Record, while giving a good test run on my custom Remote codec for the M-Audio Axiom 61.

I've implemented the "Shift" function I've talked about earlier, and added a triple way to use Program Change, Bank LSB and Bank MSB.

Each of these, trigger 3 types of events simultaneously: an Absolute value, a Delta simulation value and an Increment/Decrement button pair simulation.

So, this is a snippet of the added features I'm using now:

Select Patch for Target Device (Delta) = Program Change (Delta)

Target Track (Delta) = Bank LSB (Delta)

Remote Base Channel = Bank MSB

ID8's Select Previous Preset = Program Change Down

ID8's Select Next Preset = Program Change Up

LOOP On/Off = Shift+PLAY

Click On/Off = Shift+STOP

Precount On/Off = Shift+RECORD

Tempo BPM = Knob 8

Click Level = Shift+Knob 8

Select Previous Keyboard Shortcut Variation = Shift+REWIND

Select Next Keyboard Shortcut Variation = Shift+FORWARD

As you can see, the Delta or the Up/Down version of the supported Program Change, LSB and MSB Bank change, all have its usefulness, depending on the control one needs to assign :)

I'll release this custom Axiom codec as soon as I have time to clean it up a bit on the other device mappings and package it in a proper way.

...oh, and btw, I had to make a little change to settings sent to Axiom because of the Loop button (the one I'm calling "Shift" now) so it would work like a "shift" key... only active while pressed.

The default settings sent to Preset 10 won't support this behavior, so I decided to make my own, but to not break compatibility with the standard Axiom codec, my custom overwrites Preset 09, instead of Preset 10.